May 7, 2025 at 6:00 PM - Budget Meeting & Proposed Budget

The board welcomes you to its annual Budget Message and Proposed Budget Meeting.  Public input is welcome and encouraged during the Public Comment segment of this meeting. 

All those wishing to address the board have previously submitted their comments virtually or have submitted a Request to Speak form prior to the start of this meeting.  Only those items on the agenda may be addressed during public comment.  Three (3) minutes is allotted for each individual speaker, with a total of fifteen (15) total minutes for this segment of the agenda.  

Jonathan Chenjeri, Street Address: 219 S. 11th St.
As we enter tumultuous times culturally, politically, and economically for education, I urge the district, board, and those soon to be elected to consider improving conditions for classified staff, and improve opportunities for democracy in education.
Please work intentionally with our classified employees to provide a real living wage - one job should be enough to live a dignified life. Improving their pay and working conditions for classified, who make our school function, will improve the climate of the workplace and the ability to attract good workers.
Please also consider in the budget civics and social studies. Before the pandemic, we were to be granted a half-time teacher to enable more options of classes and smaller class sizes, but did not materialize. Civics and democracy matters - but students need to practice it in the schools. Students would be better off being able to choose from a variety of social studies courses rather than General US or Honors US.
I urge you in developing the budget the recruitment of more teachers for social studies, the arts, and foreign languages - these investments would improve quality of life and encourage productive, thoughtful adults.
As we rightly focus on building CTE opportunities, let us not lose sight of what brings all people together: civic life and the arts.
Finally, I urge you and those elected to think outside the box of the more elite-driven focus on "tougher standards." Rather, I’d be excited to see the values of "democracy" over competition. The drive toward AP, for example, is not mirrored in what colleges today expect of students, nor do they prepare students college-level work.
A variety of options to be build a more meaningful and academically rich application for employers and universities.